Technology in the classroom

i think far too often, as has been said in many of the articles i have read as i have tried to catch up on this course, technology in the calssroom is all about the bells and whistles, or as one administrator once said to me, bright colors to distract the students since they like bright colors.

I also find that unfortunately far too often the use of technology is overregulated out of fear of abuse. at my school, every email program but the school email is blocked so the teachers can't waste school time on personal email. of course forget that students can't even email assignments to themselves or us. and no one but the three tech people in the building are allowed to install any software on the computer, not even say the test generator that comes with our textbook. it can be sad.

with that said i have always been a big proponent of technology use in the classroom, so an attempt to articulate my guiding principles to it's purpose.

1 - Today's students interact in a world where technology underscores much of their lives, in entertainment, social interaction, and communication to name a few. Every classroom, particularly the science classroom must meet them at this level of interaction and guide them through the education process using this medium

2 - Science as a discipline can be summed up as collecting and interpreting data, two activities that technology has had a profound influence on in history and continues to influence regularly. It shoudl eb our goal as science educators to teach students how to collect and interpret data through methods as technologically current as possible. Teaching how it was done, and ignoring how it is done creates a community of science learners who are already behind the times.

3 - Technology in general is a tool, something that facilitates the accomplishing of a separate goal. teaching the use of technology by itself is an almost useless process, teaching children how to apply the use of technology to different disciplines should be the overall goal of including technology in any classroom, using technology in the science classroom must keep this in mind